New Kid on the Block

Posted on 1 February 2012 by sheg4184

There’s a new kid on the Manila wine scene. Meet Don Revy, ‘an international wine company that sources new world wines for emerging markets’. And what better place to make the introduction than at Cav Wine Shop & Café on Bonifacio High Street, Fort Bonifacio?

In late November, lucky ANZA members were invited to attend an informal wine tasting at Cav and to make the acquaintance of Don Revy Director, Rachel Norman-Mayers and thirteen of her best New Zealand wines. The price was inviting, the tickets were limited, and they sold out in days.

We were handed a beautifully designed information booklet and an order form as we entered the restaurant. The wines had been set up in order of styles at the far end of the room, complete with tasting notes to help guide us through the selection.

Don Revy claims to have sourced some of the best producers in the best wine growing regions across New Zealand and ‘promises to over deliver on quality and value’. The company is currently representing four New Zealand wineries: Jules Taylor Wines, Pebble Lane, Mills Reef and Chard Farm, all based in different New Zealand wine regions. So let’s don our winter woollies and head south to start the introductions.

Way down near the base of the South Island is Central Otago. Embraced by spectacular mountain ranges and awash with lakes and rivers, this remote area has only recently started to develop as a wine region, but is rapidly becoming known for its cool climate wines, namely Pinot Noir and Riesling. Here is where we meet Chard Farm, whose Rabbit Ranch produces a soft, low tannin Pinot Noir and a light, refreshing Pinot Gris – a mutant Pinot Noir grape no less! Both grape varieties thrive in this extreme climate where the long slow ripening period is ideal.

Marlborough, on the north-eastern tip of the south island, is the birthplace of the New Zealand wine industry. Marlborough has long been synonymous with excellent Sauvignon Blanc, where over 80% of this wine, now a national icon, is produced. This evening we not only got to taste this popular style, but we also tried some other interesting grape varieties that are being developed here. And here we discover Pebble Lane and Jules Taylor Wines.

Pebble Lane, a relative newcomer is what might be called a virtual winery. Pebble Lane was designed by marketing genius Rachel Norman-Mayers, who created it to fit a flavour profile that appeals to the consumer. Using the best grapes from various vineyard sites around New Zealand and contracting some of the industry’s best winemakers, she has conscientiously tasted a wide range of wines and wine  varieties in order to create a selection of well-priced, very drinkable wines. For all that it sounds a bit commercial, it works. I am not a keen Sauvignon Blanc drinker, and continue to stand by my long term love, Chardonnay, but I have to say, this one was most appealing, and devoted SB supporters sounded pleased. It was certainly, to my taste buds, better than their chardy – but then I am an Adelaide girl who likes her chardy with a bit more body.

Jules Taylor is considered one of the up and coming talents from the Southern hemisphere. A local Marlborough girl, Jules has also gained valuable experience from Cloudy Bay to Piedmont in Italy. She began her own brand ten years ago and has since acquired a clutch of awards. According to Don Revy,  Jules Taylor makes ‘high quality, handcrafted wines’ from ‘a selection of vineyards where the grape variety, soil and micro climate all work in harmony to produce the unique flavours she seeks.’ The four Jules Taylor Wines featured at Cav were an intense and citrusy Sauvignon Blanc, a fresh if somewhat bland Pinot Gris, a surprisingly sweet and fruity, European style Riesling and a 2010 Pinot Noir that could do with some short-term cellaring.

Last but definitely not least, we cross to the north island and travel up to Hawkes Bay on the east coast. Hawkes Bay is, loosely speaking, midway between Auckland and Wellington. One of the warmest, most fertile regions in New Zealand, this beautiful area has a dry and temperate climate perfect for viticulture. As a result, the region has spawned a clutch of award-winning boutique wineries. This includes our last new acquaintance, Mills Reef, a winery that loves its warm climate reds. So did I! Established in 1989 by the Preston family, Mills Reef Winery has developed, according to its website, into one of New Zealand’s premium labels with a particular reputation for outstanding Bordeaux varietal reds and Syrah.’

Certainly, for me, these reds were the pick of the bunch: the Merlot, from the renowned Gimblett Gravels, is fruity and vibrant, and apparently good for cellaring. The full-bodied Cabernet Merlot was an early front runner, but for my money, the star of the show was the Syrah, and provided a suitably rich, ballsy finish to a great night.

Visit the Don Revy website at www.donrevy.com

Stockists in Manila include:

Duty Free Philippines, Ninoy Aquino Avenue, Paranaque City, Philippines

The Cav Wine Bar & Restaurant, The Spa Building, Lot 5, Quadrant 8 City Centre, Fort Bonifacio Global City, Philippines

Rustans – Makati and Rockwell Power Plant Mall Stores – Manila, Philippines

* Images from Don Revy website.

 

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Living in a Bubble

Posted on 28 January 2012 by sheg4184

We were asked to write a piece for the ANZA News on where we lived in Manila and why. It was a good excuse to consider and re-assess…

When  we first flew into Manila, a realtor took us around Makati and the Fort. She showed us houses in gated communities, apartment blocks, condominiums. Several things made us head away from village life to our current apartment overlooking the Pasig River.

1. We wanted something we could readily lock up and walk away from when travelling.

2. We wanted easy access to a mall, particularly for me and our two teenage boys.

3. We wanted a pool and grounds that wouldn’t be our responsibility (see 1)

4. We wanted to be an easy distance from the boys’ school and my husband’s office.

The Rockwell Centre is an oasis in the desert of concrete that is Metro Manila; a retreat from the traffic and mayhem of downtown Makati; a garden of Eden separated only by a wall from the Sodom and Gomorrah that is Poblacion’s red light district. Rockwell is 15.5 hectares of land that used to be a thermal power plant owned by the Lopez family, owner of Meralco, the major electricity supplier in the Philippines, which is hardly surprising news when you see the volume of fairy lights at Christmas.

The part that still makes me smile is the private entrance at the bottom of the garden into the food court of Power Plant Mall. I will forever feel like Lucy going through the wardrobe into Narnia.

Our oasis has easy access to EDSA, the central artery of Metro Manila, as well as The Fort, Glorietta and Greenbelt (nearby shopping precincts). Rockwell is bordered by the gated community of Bel-Air to the south, the Pasig River to the north, and the working class suburbs of Guadalupe and Poblacion to east and west.

Our apartment is a spacious 4 bedroom, all with ensuites, and a maid’s room that is one of the best we saw anywhere – so good in fact that, for us, it doubles as a guest room and den for the boys, even if the ensuite is a little basic. (N.B. maids accommodation is standard in almost every house or apartment, however small, but most maids quarters resemble a tiny walk-in wardobe, and as Aussies unused to live-in help, we sometimes found such contrasts a little hard to swallow).  The kitchen isn’t huge, but its perfectly workable, although it is worth negotiating for quality white goods – may apartments make do with sub-standard stoves and refrigerators. There is plenty of wardrobe space, and the Master bedroom –  well, let’s just say I have lived in smaller houses!

Our private entrance to Power Plant Mall is absolutely brilliant for a quick dash to the supermarket for milk and chocolate or the hardware store for light bulbs; to the ATM machine when I run out of cash ; to Chillis when the boys are screaming for red meat and there’s none in the freezer, and to a selection of coffee shops and cheap eateries for meeting friends, ours and theirs, which is all too good to be true after years spent on the outer rim of suburbia where we needed a car to get to the corner shop. Feel the need for a Sunday night movie? There’s a cinema on the top floor, right next door to Manila’s best bookshop, Fully Booked. Want a moment of quiet reflection? There’s a chapel two doors down from Toys ‘r’ Us that bursts at the seams on Sunday mornings.

Joining the Rockwell Club is a drawn out process (a common denominator here) but it’s well worth the patience. Margaritas-by-the-pool was a lifestyle choice I had flaunted in front of my friends before I left Sydney, and one I wouldn’t mind indulging forever, although I have since discovered that the Mojitos are better if you don’t mind picking out the mint from between your teeth. Also, the gym is a godsend if I am not going to turn into a total blimp in the tropics. There is a good restaurant – although we’ve only been once – and Rocky’s café is not too bad if you avoid the fried food – unless you have a penchant for cheap past-its-used-by-date coconut oil, which I don’t. I am racking my brains for a negative twist – you can see I’m scraping the barrel!

Rizal Tower has the largest apartments but no balcony, and you pay in floor space if you choose Luna Gardens for a little fresh air, but the gardens are great for toddlers and small kids to ride bikes over your toes and throw balls at your head, and the ya-yas all congregate at twilight to give their charges a run around before bedtime. We have a car park or two, engineers on tap who do try to fix any problems, and friendly security guards who say hello every time I walk past, and can generally inform me where my teenagers are hanging out.

I do miss a barbecue on the patio, but only in the cooler months. And waiting for the lifts can be painful if you’re in a hurry, and it’s stopping at every other floor, and then you’ve forgotten your phone… but a front row pew for the fireworks over Rockwell at Christmas, New Year and whenever else the Filipinos feel like a firework extravaganza make up for minor irritations. Heaven help me if I ever complain. Hardship posting? Hardly! We are living in a bubble of luxury.

 

 

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Setting Standards at Enderun Colleges

Posted on 25 January 2012 by sheg4184

Restaurant 101 is the training restaurant for Enderun College’s food and beverage students. I have always been impressed with the meals served at 101, but this time I was more specifically interested in the food and beverage students who were being examined on their service skills.  Having trained at Regency Park College in South Australia, I am always interested in observing other food & beverage students, and seeing them develop. So I was delighted to be invited to be a guest participant during the Final Practical Exams for last semester’s batch.

I was asked to make up a table of four, so I gathered up three good friends, all with experience in the F&B industry.  We were briefed at the door as to what to expect and how to conduct ourselves. We were given an assessment sheet, and told we should try to order different dishes, presumably to give the students plenty of practice at taking orders.

For our contribution to the assessment, we would be served a 3-course meal, to include one soft drink and the after-dinner coffee or tea, which we were politely requested to order.

Restaurant 101 is elegantly attractive. Today it was brimming with guests, and yet still surprisingly peaceful.  There is a kind of innate hush that politely requests we don’t raise out voices. I always find this dining room a haven compared with the noise pollution that accompanies many modern restaurants these days. Certainly no expense appears to have been spared to provide a congenial, calm atmosphere.

We were welcomed nervously to our table by our young waitress, and settled ourselves down to observe how she got on. Apparently, the students had designed their own table settings,  so there as an interesting mixture of flower arrangements, and competition was rife.

Our server then presented the menus. These were unusually sparse in description or explanation, presumably to invite questions to our server and assess how well she knew the menu. Not very well, as it turned out, but her instructor was at hand to fill the gaps so we weren’t left completely in the dark. It was, as always, a simple lunch menu. As westerners used to larger helpings, especially the North Americans at the table, we were initially a little surprised at the small serves. However, we later admitted that the portion sizes were all we needed at lunch time. And none of us could fault the quality of our dishes – but then of course we had not been invited to assess the kitchen, who were all professionally trained.

We obediently made different choices from the menu, and my baked oysters were the best I have ever tasted. The oysters were a good size and texture and warmed nicely beneath a smooth, tangy béarnaise sauce that complemented them perfectly. Others enjoyed the quality of the salad, but thought it lacked the necessary spark to lift it from the ordinary.  Our waitress did a great job getting everything safely to the table – we had joked about large plastic coated aprons – and did not have the misfortune of a neighbouring performer who toppled a glass to the floor.

Simplicity was truly the focus for our main courses: a tasty piece of red snapper on rice; a bowl of tiny gnocchi with a light white sauce; a fish soup with muscles,  all  highly praised by the recipients. Meanwhile our waitress practiced pouring our wine: iced tea in a recycled wine bottle! I remember spending hours practicing with a waiter’s friend corkscrew to get the knack of pulling corks at the table. I am very envious of this generation blessed with screw top bottles.

Seamlessly the plates were cleared and the desserts selected. A tiramisu and a Filipino version of the same called rhum baba. We ordered both, very politely. The cream fetishists at the table (two of us) found the thick cream on top of our tiramisu positively orgasmic, but had to admit that the very thin layer of sponge beneath was disappointing. We could taste neither masala nor coffee, so that really, it was a yummy bowl of cream. Unfortunately the rhum baba was also rejected, and certainly looked heavy and uninspiring.

However, our waitress completed her performance neatly, right down to decrumbing the table with a linen napkin. I cheerfully added some cream from my dessert to my coffee, which improved it enormously. We then duly completed the questionnaire, paid our bill (with monopoly money) and left the table.

The questionnaire was interesting in that most of the questions were worded such that our answers were inevitably yes, and there was rarely room to comment further, except, strangely on the bread rolls, for which we were given about four lines. The emphasis seemed to be more on appearance than performance, and we were – again surprisingly – asked to comment on the food.

Nonetheless, our lunch was served efficiently, and the plastic aprons weren’t required after all. The students may still have a little way to go, but, watching their teacher progressing around the room, I am guessing she will find a way to bring them up to scratch. And I have to add that our waitress ticked several of our pre-discussed boxes: she did a great job of balancing instantly available with unobtrusive – always a delicate task when you are learning the job. And there were a couple of memorable little touches – like bringing over a small side table so our handbags weren’t tangled round our feet, and remembering to tell our vegetarian companion that the mushroom soup was cooked in a beef stock. Also, much to our approbation, she waited to clear our tables till we had all finished eating. Other little details she will pick up along the way. And she apologized very sweetly and sincerely for any errors before we left her to get over the shock of her examination.

It was heartening to see Enderun working so hard to raise the standards of service here in the Philippines. That warm, friendly Filipino smile is always welcome, but can’t always undo the damage of sloppy service. So keep up the good work Enderun.

Restaurant 101 at Enderun Colleges is open from Monday to Saturday; from 11:30am to 2pm for lunch, and from 6 to 10pm for dinner.

* Images from Enderun’s website:  http://www.enderuncolleges.com/

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Afternoon Tea with a Russian Flavour

Posted on 22 January 2012 by sheg4184

I must confess, I had never heard of the Russian Tea Room until last December. My initial plan was to organize afternoon tea at the Plaza, but unfortunately for us, Eloise, the Plaza’s most significant resident, had got in first and the Palm Room had long been fully booked for her private tea party.

My sister-in-law recommended The Russian Tea Room as a suitable alternative. With half a dozen girlfriends on stand-by, I took the plunge and booked the venue.

Tucked away between 6th and 7th Avenue, on West 57th Street, the RTR has an interesting history. Founded by former members of the Russian Imperial Ballet in 1927, it became a second home for Russian expatriates, the intellectual elite of New York and the entertainment industry. Over 85 years, the Russian Tea Room has maintained a modernist Russian style decor, and continues to host New York’s elite.

It has also featured in several movies such as Tootsie, When Harry Met Sally and Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Madonna worked here as a coat check chick before she threw the coats aside to bare all – well almost – in her music videos.

Today, the Russian Tea Room claims a reputation for continental fine dining, the finest selection of vodkas and an elegant high tea.

First, I have a bone to pick with this title. It is a bone I often chew on, but I was truly surprised to find the misnomer attached to such a reputedly high class establishment, and can’t resist commenting.

There are, according to food historian Colin Spencer, two types of tea: afternoon tea and high tea. Almost the only thing they have in common is the beverage: tea.

Historically, High Tea, for all the elegance of its name, is, not about delicate china and morsels of cake served on tiered plates. High Tea, an expression of British origin coined in the early nineteenth century, was, ironically, a far more substantial affair, eaten by the working classes at around 6 o’clock in the evening. It consisted of pies, stews, cold cuts, cakes and bread – a wholesome meal for the labourers and miners returning home from a hard day’s work.

Afternoon tea, on the other hand, was a dainty snack for the ladies, a light meal that filled a gap between midday luncheon and a late, eight o’clock dinner, originating in England in the late 18th century. Tea, then recently introduced to Europeans, was the drink of the wealthy. Highly taxed, tea was a luxury item, a sign of affluence and respectability, unaffordable to the lower classes. Traditionally, a cup of tea was accompanied by tiny sandwiches filled with cucumber, egg and cress or smoked salmon. Scones, served with jam and clotted cream, and tiny cakes and pastries provided a sweet alternative.

Yet I have recently read that since the 1950s, and in the RTR’s defence, the meaning has altered, particularly outside the UK, where High Tea was thought to have a more elegant and formal tone than afternoon tea. Subsequently, High Tea has become a popular form of afternoon entertainment in luxury hotels, often served with optional Champagne.

So enough of the history lecture, let’s move on to the tea. Five girlfriends, and two teenage daughters had landed in New York for Christmas. The boys had come along too, but they were elsewhere, playing basketball, watching basketball, drinking beer. It seemed only fair to have a bit of girl-time too.

The Russian Tea Room offers what I would deem an afternoon tea: morsels of cake and petites fours; snippets of sandwiches; a wide selection of teas, and an optional glass of bubbly, served between 2.30 and 4pm. Undeniably, the sandwiches are significantly superior to a Subway’s offering, if not as filling. Putting semantic snobbery aside, perhaps the term High Tea is more fitting after all, and bear in mind these are sandwich fillings:

 Curried chicken salad with raisins and pecans; shrimp salad with rémoulade (a spicy, tartar sauce-like mayonnaise); Smoked Scottish salmon with chive cream cheese and cucumber; artichokes with red pepper and a sun-dried tomato goat’s cheese; smoked ham and turkey with truffle; croque monsieur(a miniature toasted cheese sandwich); N.Y smoked sturgeon with dill and sour cream; Roquefort and pear with walnuts, and a soupçon of two American caviars on Blinis (a plateful would have been better, they were delicious!).

Sadly, the menu doesn’t list the sweet items individually, and by then a few Australian bubbles had passed my lips, so I have only vague recollections of some rather tasty truffles, some neat and tiny cupcakes or friands?… Amelia? Help?

 The list of available loose teas was positively daunting, for a single-minded drinker of English Breakfast tea. Ceylon,Darjeeling, Chamomile and Peppermint were familiar, but Formosa Oolong and Mint Verbena, not to mention Rooibos Chai (apparently a South African red bush with Indian spices) left me gasping. I am now quite inspired to become a tea connoisseur. And I loved the descriptions. Try and match them together with the tea: brisk; delicate sweet notes….

On a chilly winter’s afternoon, the plush red furnishings were just right, if a little overbearing for my taste. The service was very friendly and welcoming, although we were all a tad put out at being interrupted by our young Eastern European waitress asking us to sort out the bill mid-way through the tea so they could balance the till. Our sommelier, however, more than made up for this slight faux-pas. A lovely, enthusiastic New Yorker, she was delighted to find a table full of Aussies, as she had studied in Australia ten years earlier. And she had studied not only in Australia, but in my home town, Adelaide. Aaaaand… wait for it… she had studied for her Masters in Gastronomy, of which there is a mere handful of graduates world wide – and of which I am also one! The reunion was full of inappropriate shrieks of delight, distraction and discovery. (It also distracted me momentarily from the enormous service charges and taxes Americans like to add to any restaurant bill. Aussies Beware! And Be Prepared!).

Still, we got all we could have wanted in the way of a self-indulgent afternoon of lady-like chat, cake and champagne. There was a three-tiered cake plate. And the Russian flavour of the High Tea actually made an interesting change from the usual colonial English Afternoon Tea taste… although I did miss the clotted cream.

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The Toastmaster’s Apprentice

Posted on 19 January 2012 by sheg4184

‘Toastmasters’ is an international club that was first established in 1924, designed to create competent and confident communicators. It currently has over 270,000 members and 13,000 clubs worldwide. The Asian Development Bank in Manila has its own Toastmasters club which is open to all ADB employees and their spouses. The club began well over ten years ago, since when there have been almost 650 meetings. Its mission statement claims to ‘promote personal growth by providing a mutually supportive learning environment in developing leadership and communication skills.’

When I first joined  Toastmasters, I was encouraged to attend the club meetings regularly. Then, as soon as I felt ready, I could prepare my first short speech, an icebreaker, to be presented to the other members. Participants also have the opportunity to give impromptu mini-talks (Table Topics), develop skills in timekeeping, grammar and language analysis, conduct meetings and learn about parliamentary procedure. Thus the experience we gain in public speaking can develop into leadership development.

There is no instructor at a Toastmasters meeting. Instead, members evaluate each other’s presentations and provide feedback. Current chairperson Marissa Wenceslao suggests the KKK or ‘Kiss, Kick, Kiss’ method of constructive evaluation, although her ‘Kicks’ are generally too gentle to bruise even the thinnest skin.

Toastmasters gives you the skills and the confidence to rise to any occasion, be it as Master of Ceremonies at your sister’s wedding, to simply voicing an opinion at a staff meeting. Recently one member tagged us with the title: ‘the club where winners are made’ due to the number of awards our members have been collecting in various Toastmasters’ competitions. We are such a talented bunch!

I first heard about Toastmasters from the spouse liaison when we had just arrived in Manila. At the time, inundated with information and opportunities, I put the pamphlet at the back of my desk. Six months later I had cause to go looking for it again. I had just presented a paper at the 2011 Gastronomic Symposium in Canberra, and had rediscovered the sheer terror I felt about standing in front of a room full of my peers. Give me a group around a dinner table and I am perfectly at ease, but a podium and a large audience? Help!

I watched several more practiced speakers, including my friend Tammi, smiling confidently through their respective papers, barely looking at their notes, never struggling for words or hiccupping on ‘umms’ and ‘ahhs’. Dry mouthed and shaking, I took my turn, and thanked God for a reasonable Power Point presentation, that gave the audience something other than me to look at. Nonetheless, I was still incredibly wary of taking my eyes from my notes. As for smiling, I couldn’t have managed even a quick grin if my life had depended on it.

So I came home to Manila, rummaged in my desk, and rang Angel. Please could I join up? I needed a sponsor, apparently, but she was happy to be mine, and so the following Wednesday I stepped bravely into the meeting. I started gently during the following weeks with a couple of simple table topic speeches. These impromptu presentations are based on a moral or life philosophy picked from a hat. Topics may include such wisdoms as:

Always be yourself, because the people that matter won’t mind and the ones that mind, don’t matter.

With only 30 seconds to prepare, and no more than three minutes speaking time, the Table Topics are short and sweet, but they help build confidence to face that first ‘proper’ speech.

When I took the plunge at last, I again found my mouth dry and my hands shaking. Seven minutes seemed to last a lifetime, but I did it. And I have done five more speeches since. Each time it gets a little easier, and the support and encouragement of the club is invaluable. I am hoping that by the time I attend another Symposium I will have completed the basic training of ten speeches and be as breezily confident as my friend Tammi, will no longer um and ah and will at last be able to find a smile for my audience.

making speeches can be challenging, but it is also fun, and it is fascinating to learn about other people’s interests and experiences. Toastmasters has also proved to be a very different way to make some interesting new friends.

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The Gold Line to Old Pasadena

Posted on 15 January 2012 by sheg4184

I arrived in Los Angeles determined not to be entirely swamped by Disney, Universal Studios or any other Hollywood theme parks. I wanted just one day to absorb a little local culture, other than the virtual reality of the movie world.

Realizing that I might not be able tempt the kids away from the theme parks with ‘culture’, I thought ‘food’ might do the trick, and found “Melting Pot Tours, Los Angeles” on the internet.  Sadly, they don’t run tours in January, but their website gave me the idea of heading out to Old Pasadena and devising my own.

The subway in Los Angeles is not as extensive as it is in New York. Rumour has it that a conglomerate of motor related companies were responsible for the demise of the tramways , replacing the  intricate tramway system with buses. LA now has a car culture, and public transport is consequently under-used. However, the relatively new subway system went where we wanted to go, and the cleanliness and lack of crowds was, for us, an unexpected advantage.

Old Pasadena is located eleven miles east of downtown LA at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. Proud to be the second oldest city in California, Pasadena reminded us of an Australian country town, with its enormous blue skies, slow-moving residents, low level buildings and broad streets.

Once a large Mexican-owned Ranch, the name Pasadena is actually a Chippewa name meaning ‘of the valley.’ With its clean air and mild, dry climate, Pasadena became popular as a winter resort for wealthy Easterners. Now it is renowned for for holding  the annual Rose Bowl Football Game and the annual Tournament of Roses Parade. It is also the home of many scientific and cultural institutions, boutiques and restaurants.

This peaceful town was a welcome relief after three weeks of New York City crowds boiling feverishly over the pavements with Christmas holiday enthusiasm. If we had arrived 2 days earlier, however, we would have struck the traditional Rose Parade, an extravagant New Year ’s Day procession of flowery floats that attracts almost a million tourists each year. We arrived two days later and everything was calm and unruffled again. Wandering out of the subway station we were immediately confronted with an impressively domed building at the top of the road. It seemed like the obvious starting point.

The Pasadena City Hall was completed in 1927, and claimed as one of the finest examples of the Californian Mediterranean style of architecture. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and the architect was inspired by three other famous domes: St Paul’s Cathedral in London, Les Invalides in Paris and the Basilica Santa Maria della Salute in Venice.  Graceful and imposing from the front, it secretes a serene cloistered garden behind its austere façade.  We climbed the curved staircase to the upper cloisters, and leaned over the balcony to admire the cool beauty of the neat flower beds and a central fountain burbling soothingly in the flickering sunlight between two large, shady trees.

The local resident of the information booth grudgingly handed me a brochure on the city. There is a lot to do in Pasadena, apparently, but without a car and only a day to explore, well, it was hardly worth her exerting the energy to describe the possibilities! Of course she could direct us to the older part of town, but – sighing – we would have to walk. The insinuation that it would be a good day’s hike proved exaggerated, but the two short blocks became six longer ones, until we realized she had sent us the wrong way. Bad directions notwithstanding, we eventually found Old Pasadena, and Bar Celona, an unexpected culinary gem we came across as we scanned the street for lunch. Modern Spanish and tapas, we felt, was the perfect accompaniment to the Spanish flavour of the town’s curved terracotta tiles and square campanile.

We ordered a selection of tapas and dug in. A small flatbread pizza arrived first, topped with basil and mint pesto, cheese and… grapes! The menu said figs – they must have run out – but the grapes added an interesting note of sweetness to this savoury bite. This was followed by a mixed platter of empanadas. If you haven’t met one before, it usually looks like a mini pasty, with any number of possible fillings. These ones were a mix of sweet potato and slow cooked beef, but wrapped in a flaky filo pastry, instead of the heavier pastry we were used to.  A Tortilla Española – Spanish omelette filled with potatoes – was surprisingly light and airy, but a little bland. The selection of olives was quite the opposite, as the olives had been tossed in a spicy, olive oil marinade that we gobbled up, calling for bread to wipe out the bowl once the olives were all gone.

The charred lamb sausages with cannellini beans and salsa verde were superb. I could cheerfully have warded off the competition and eaten them all myself, but the boys were faster. We had the same response to the dish of moist albondigas (meatballs) stewed in saffron, allspice and tomato. That’s the only problem with good tapas – there’s never enough to go round more than once!

Full and sleepy, the kids headed back to the hotel, while my husband and I decided to do a circuit of this picturesque old town.

It wasn’t a long walk, but round the corner we found a quiet, leafy street aptly named Green Street. On the corner of Green and Raymond, stands Castle Green, a beautiful Mediterranean-style apartment block, originally part of the Green Hotel, completed in 1898. It was converted into apartments in 1924. Pretty balconies overlook shady, verdant lawns that spread across into neighbouring Central Park.

By now the tapas had settled and dessert required further thought. We were spoiled for choice. Two doors down from where we had eaten lunch, we found a small gelateria, where everyone was struggling to choose less than half a dozen flavours from a delicious display of twenty four. My coconut and lemon waffle cone was a perfect combination of zesty and creamy.

Further down West Colorado Boulevard was a local chocolate shop. The chocolates are made on site and in typical super-size-me tradition the truffles were huge and the slabs of chocolate fudge were bejewelled with M&Ms, Oreos, peanut brittle and other childhood favourites. The kids would have loved it.

Around the corner ‘lette  macaroons had filled their windows with silver branches decorated with macaroons of pastel pink, chartreuse, lemon yellow, tangerine and raspberry. The counter held a tempting display of twelve different flavours (pistachio, chocolate, raspberry, passionfruit…) that were presented to us, beautifully boxed for the meager price of US$19.90 per dozen. (I say meager as a recent and besotted convert to macaroons who would happily pay any price, and then lock myself in the bathroom with the box to avoid sharing!)Old Pasadena is choc-a-block with restaurants, cafes and wine bars, whose buildings have all been lovingly restored over the past decade.  It also has some great boutiques, art collections and antique shops. Pasadena was a popular area with 20th century millionaires. There are several grand houses on the outskirts of town that are open to the public, built by such wealthy individuals as David Gamble, the Proctor & Gamble heir, and railroad magnate Henry Huntingdon.   I began to see why the cheerless woman in the information booth thought we should stay longer, but we were only there for the food, so by now, our hunger totally assuaged, we headed home.

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A Gateway to India in Santa Monica

Posted on 12 January 2012 by sheg4184

Anthony Bourdain once wrote about a game he played with fellow chefs called the Death Row Game, where each player must choose what  would behis or her last meal on earth. Against all expectations they often chose their favourite home cooked meal over any highfalutin fourteen course degustation menu.  ‘The word Mom usually comes up. Bread and butter… and a bowl of pasta are popular answers.’ So when at death’s door, comfort food wins over gourmet cuisine every time.

It made me think about what would be my last meal. And the answer came to me recently at a restaurant in Santa Monica: Indian.

I first introduced our three small children to Indian cuisine in Broadway, a small town in the Cotswolds where my husband and I had got married several years before.  My husband was aghast. What was I thinking? But the kids were hungry and the pubs were closed and we were miles from an acceptable chain restaurant. The kids were thrilled with their first foray into sub-continental cuisine and have never looked back. Since then, Indian has been their unanimous cuisine of choice for birthday dinners, special occasions and Friday night takeaways.

So when we found ourselves in Santa Monica with a democratic debate rapidly disintegrating into a family squabble about where to eat, the discovery of ‘Gate of India’ felt heaven sent. Authentic Indian cuisine was being served beneath a canopy of coloured fabrics. It had been listed in the Zagat Guide in 1999. It was open.

It may be that we were hungry and therefore extra appreciative, but we were unequivocally delighted with our lunch. We ordered old favourites and unfamiliar new temptations. We then proceeded, greedily and appreciatively, to empty every pretty copper bowl, only just stopping short of licking them clean.

Apart from one overly mild and rather dreary chicken tikka masala, all the dishes were warmly received by someone. The fish tandoori was tender but firm, marinated in a fresh ginger sauce and served on a sizzling platter.

I encouraged the kids to try all three vegetable dishes and they all obliged me with mixed success. The boys generally demur on anything green. However, my husband, my daughter and I gleefully devoured the okra bhuna (improved by pairing it with a sophisticated homemade mango chutney), the eggplant bhorta and the daal makhani: a tasty concoction that used five kinds of lentils cooked in spices and tomatoes.

But the number one winner (well I refused to allow the vote to go to the butter chicken, despite the kids enthusiasm – it’s not my favourite at the best of times and this certainly wasn’t one of those ah-ha moments) – was a lamb karahi.  Slow cooked and spicy, the sauce rich and smooth, it melted in the mouth and left my taste buds regretting its passing.

I am really sorry the Gate to India is not just around the corner, but it has certainly confirmed that an Indian banquet with my family will be number one on my Last Supper Wish List. And at least I can rest assured they will all come!

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Nothing could be finer than to be in Ellen’s Diner…

Posted on 10 January 2012 by sheg4184

A first visit to New York should always incorporate a meal at a themed restaurant. Our son’s best mate obliged us by choosing  Ellen’s Stardust Diner in Times Square for his birthday dinner, and inviting us to the party.

Despite queuing for an hour in the freezing street, Ellen’s was a true-blue New York experience: a 1950s retro restaurant with famously crooning waiters and a kitsch New York menu. (Please note: you can’t reserve a table here and they wouldn’t seat us until our whole party of ten had arrived.) The doorman, with obvious physical qualifications as a bouncer,  was inclined to be officious, but we were great friends by the end. Well, he had been watching us slowly freeze to the footpath for an hour – he had to show us some sympathy eventually!

We finally staggered inside to a rendition of Mama Mia and a vision of two gravity-defying waiters somehow balancing on the bar between the booths and singing at the same time. We were delighted.

Singing waiters, burgers and sangria – what more could you ask for? It was loud, but the atmosphere was palpable, and the kids loved the milkshakes and thought the whole experience was ‘awesome’. Our servers were enthusiastic and friendly, and gave the birthday boy more attention than you probably really want at fourteen.

New York Magazine called it ‘a tribute to that archetype of mid-century American Gastronomy’. I’m not sure I would classify it as my greatest gastronomical experience ever, however, given the old adage that it’s either quality entertainment or quality food but never both, it was certainly better food than I would have expected. And it was well priced, if you consider the entertainment as part of the package. Our food came briskly to the table once our order was taken, and the waiters were keen and as quick as they possibly could be when the restaurant was packed to the gunnels and they had to take and deliver orders between acts.

The staff certainly had some talent. As we thawed out, we were given back-to-back performances of Broadway show songs and popular music from the 50s, 60s and 70s – and even a bit of opera from one classically trained diva, which made an interesting contrast.

The earnest New York menu included such delights as Sock Hop Loaded Fries – ‘mounds of waffle fries’ – Hot Diggity Dogs, Blue Suede Burger and an Empire State whose description needed an Anglo-American dictionary to translate it. My own The Walter Cronkite hamburger was supposedly a favourite, and was certainly a step up from the average chain store hamburger, but perhaps not as spectacular as ‘the finest beef in the world’ deserved. Sundaes of every imaginable variety dominated the dessert menu, but we had to leave room for the birthday cake.

It was one of those ‘must do’ moments, and the perfect place for a birthday celebration.  It was also the perfect place to embarrass the kids by joining in enthusiastically with the singing. Well, it was so loud, no one could really hear me… much… and at least I wasn’t dancing on my seat like the extroverted Granny behind me. I guess she was loving the sangria too!

PS Look out for a cameo performance from Ellen’s Stardust Diner in the new movie – another cheap imitation of 2003 Christmas romcom Love Actually –  ‘New Year’s Eve.‘

 

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Ahoy! All Aboard for a Food Tour in New York City

Posted on 9 January 2012 by sheg4184

New York City: The Chrysler Building and Central Park; The Empire State and the Plaza Hotel; the Met and the New York Ballet; Fifth Avenue and Broadway; the Brooklyn Bridge and Ground Zero; Staten Island and the Statue of Liberty; Food…?

We had checked out Dean & Deluca’s and the Food Hall at the Plaza. Both were terrific, very trendy and five star groceries. We had been in an Irish pub and a themed diner. We had located our favourite local coffee shop. We had eaten pizza until we couldn’t eat another slice. Now it was time to head downtown and see what was happening south of Washington Square. “Ahoy New York Food Tours were offering food, fun, history and culture in a walking tour of Little Italy and Chinatown. Perfect.

I set off early with our older son to walk down Broadway from our apartment in the East Village to Lower Manhattan. The rest of the family, a little slower to rise, would take the subway and meet us there. It was too early for the shops to have opened and the pavement was strewn with rubbish from the night before. Pedestrians were few and far between. Well-known stores such as Gap, Bloomingdales, Victoria’s Secrets and Forever 21 trailed behind us as we walked briskly through the chilly morning.  It was all familiarly western until we hit Canal Street, when we were suddenly thrown through a worm hole and found ourselves back in Chinatown, Manila. The pavement was full of street vendors trying to sell us handbags, watches and left-over Christmas decorations. The shop and restaurant signs were all in Chinese. White westerners were almost non-existent.

Our tour group was due to meet outside a Chinese grocery store at 10.15am. Arriving early,  and feeling somewhat obtrusive,  we wandered inside to explore shelves of Chinese snacks, dried herbs, spices and plants, herbal medicines and make-up, while cooking pots of breakfast noodles scented the air with delicious waves of flavour. Choosing some seaweed snacks for later, it felt decidedly surreal to have the woman at the check-out ask me in American English for American dollars. I realized I had been waiting to hear the amount in pesos in a heavy Filipino accent.

Alana was waiting on the pavement when we came out. Another surprise.  I had anticipated a local Chinese or Italian tour guide, and Alana was a blonde, blue-eyed migrant from upstate New York who ‘lives, breaths and EATS the city’. Without further ado she marched us off across Canal Street and into Mulberry Street, the main street of Little Italy. Here Italian restaurants and cafes jostled for position on the narrow street.  Alana ushered us into a small church forecourt beside a full-sized manger scene for introductions. With a maximum capacity of twelve, six of them being our family, introductions were speedily made and Alana moved on to a potted history of the area.

Now immersed in Lower Manhattan, Little Italy was originally on the outskirts of New York City, now the financial district at the tip of Manhattan Island. The largest influx of Italian migrants occurred from 1880 to 1930 and the area was a thriving Italian community until the Black Hand began to take over the streets. This mafia operated extortion racket drove many migrants to move on again, to set up in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, New Jersey and beyond.

A few stayed on, however, and today some of the local businesses here have been in family hands for generations, such as the Alleva Dairy on Grand Street. A fifth generation family business, Alleva Dairy is  reputedly the oldest Italian cheese store in America. Here we were given wafer thin slices of prosciutto to taste, wrapped around wedges of creamy mozzarella. While I missed the added sweetness of the melon we usually pair with prosciutto, it was an interesting combination of salty ham and soft spongy cheese.

Plates emptied, we then crossed the road to the Ferrara Bakery and Café. We peered eagerly upon shelves of Italian pastries: Italian Napoleon (vanilla slices), torrone (nougat) and pignole (almond cookies), while Alana prepared us a tray of mini cannoli. A traditional Sicilian dessert, cannoli are crispy, fried pastry tubes filled with ricotta or sometimes mascarpone cheese, mixed with a number of possible additives: vanilla or a dash of cinnamon; chopped pistachios, chocolate chips, candied citrus peel or cherries . The name comes from the Latin, canna, meaning reed. It is a delicately flavoured snack that would have gone well with a splash of espresso coffee, but we were on the move again.

Our guide enthusiastically herded us through the neighbourhood, telling tales of mafia murders on Mulberry Street and a factory fire during which 146 women and girls of Italian and Jewish descent were trapped and died on the fifth floor of a clothing factory in 1911. It was New York’s worst disaster until 9/11. The tragedy created a strong rallying point for women’s rights advocates, while local unions seized the opportunity to fight for better conditions and greater safety standards.

Crossing back over Canal Street was like crossing a national border. As the scene changed suddenly from Italy to Asia, I was tempted to pull out my passport. The first Chinese migrants arrived in California in the 1790s. Within fifty years many had made their way across the country to New York. However, further migration was rapidly stymied with the introduction of the Exclusion Act in 1882, a law that prevented the wives and children of existing Chinese migrants joining them in America, and refused citizenship to any Chinese already living there. This act was not lifted until the 1960s. Since then, the Cantonese in particular have taken over the area, swallowing up large parts of Little Italy. There is also a number of other South East Asian nationalities in residence, to which the number of Indonesian, Korean and Vietnamese restaurants testify. For lunch we went to Thailand, directly opposite Columbus Park.

Apparently this corner of Chinatown was once a den of iniquity, a meeting place for thieves and villains immortalized in the 2002 movie Gangs of New York. There is no sign of such Dickensian grimness now. All is calm and peaceful in Columbus Park, where locals gather around checker tables, practice tai chi and kung fu, and play baseball, watched over by the benign presence of China’s national hero  Lin Xe Zu. But we couldn’t stop to play. Lunch beckoned.

The Pongsri Thai restaurant has apparently been in the family for 25 years. Their food is tasty, if not traditionally Thai, and we all dug in with enthusiasm to fried chicken in orange sauce, noodles, tofu and broccoli. Those who could, wielded chopsticks – although not, I should add, traditional Thai implements, but presumably there for the benefit of a largely Chinese clientele.

After friendly conversation with our fellow foodies, always part of the fun of a tour, we were encouraged back into the street by our ever-buoyant tour guide. Standing outside a nearby tenement building with its infamous iron fire escapes, Alana drew a gruesome picture of life in the tenements in the first half of the twentieth century: three interlinked rooms; no bathroom; no running water;  a communal lavatory out the back, and tightly packed family groups of up to fourteen people. I though of our airy Manila apartment rather guiltily…

Uncertain of having room for any more food, we found it surprisingly easy to squeeze in a delicious bite-sized pork dumpling dipped in soy  sauce and vinegar or chili sauce. Freshly made, lightly fried, then steamed, they were favourites for many in our group.  Tasty and healthy, they make a cheap, easy snack.

Our final stop was at Aji Ichiban – a sweet shop, now an international chain, that originated in Hong Kong. We have one in our local mall in Manila, although not as well-stocked as this one with its broad selection of dried fruits and flowers, meats and fish, all laid out for tasting, which we did with interest. The kids, of course, dived to fill bags with more familiar candies like Skittles.

It was a sweet finale to a tasty and informative tour. We met some really interesting New Yorkers, and I came away with a long list of books to read the fascinating history of this area in greater detail. Despite being a little touristy, we loved the area, with its winding, narrow, cobbled, densely packed, hustling, bustling, multi-cultural  streets. It had such a very different flavour from the more spacious, ostentatious upper reaches of Manhattan.

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Dashing Divas

Posted on 11 December 2011 by sheg4184

A report on expatriate life in Manila would not be complete without a tale about a Filipino beauty treatment. Dashing Divas is a small, girly-pink nail bar in Power Plant Mall that I visit from time to time. Manicures, pedicures and occasionally, when my own nails are split and peeling, stick-on nails – or Virtual Nails as I discovered they were called today.  (And let me tell you, when you don’t know the exact expression, yelling ‘you know, stick-on nails,’ five times in case they are deaf gets you nowhere!)

An hour and a half in a beauty salon or nail bar is time well spent, and not only for the obvious pampered self-indulgence. Retreating from the madness of a pre-Christmas shopping mall, I spent a fascinating hour or so discussing Filipino food with Ness and Lorna while they clipped and polished my nails, soaked and scrubbed my feet, wrapped them in cling film (???) and generally made me feel a million dollars. It turns out one of the girls had done a Hospitality Course at university, but as is often the way in the Philippines, convenience and availability has kept her at Dashing Divas. I know another university graduate – with a degree in archaeology of all things – who earns better money working 4 days a week as a housekeeper. Apparently this is all too common in Manila.

Anyway, to return to the foodie discussion: Ness asked me if I had ever eaten balut. For anyone unlucky enough never to have experienced this taste sensation, join the queue. Balut is a fertilized duck egg, old enough to be visibly duck-shaped, but young enough that the bones don’t crunch when you bite into it. Boiled and eaten in the shell, it is apparently an aphrodisiac (that kind of sex I can do without!) and is a popular, nutritious street food in the Philippines. Ness loves it. Lorna doesn’t. I’m with Lorna.

It was, however, a good distraction from the loofah tickling the soles of my feet. That experience normally sends me into orbit.

We moved on to discussions of their favorite foods, how to cook it, and what I must try. This included pinkabet (p’kbet in shorthand) which is a green vegetable dish topped with fish paste. I was pleased to be able to say I had tried this before, and the salty bagoong (pronounced bagu’ung) is an interesting addition to a bowl of steamed veggies.

Paksiw pata is a stew now on my ‘to do’ list. Ness tells me it is made with loin of pork (she explained this by pointing at her thigh) cooked with vinegar, soy sauce and banana. It is her favourite, so I have promised to look out for it.

Sinigang, they agreed, is one of those dishes into which you can throw just about anything, but they both prefer theirs with pork and gabi (taro), white radishes, sitaw (local beans, like extra-long strands of spaghetti), sampalok (tamarind), eggplant and okra. I have found this recipe by googling it, so I will try cooking it one day soon and get back to you.

We then discussed traditional Filipino Christmas fare, but for these girls it was more about volume than any particular dishes. Puto bumbong, however, is a must-have at Christmas, and apparently I can try it at Via Mare. A dessert or merienda, it is made from ground rice coloured with purple yam and steamed in bamboo tubes. When removed from the bamboo tubes, it is spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar and niyog (grated coconut). It can then be wrapped in banana leaves to keep it warm and moist until you are ready to eat it.

This led to a discussion of colours (I knew yam was ube in Tagalog, which also means purple) and so I was able to show off my extensive understanding of their language which consists almost entirely of nine colours that I was taught by the boys at the orphanage. Let me share them with you.

Purple/violet = u-bay/lee-lah

Orange = cah-hill or dalandan (also a fruit)

Red = poo-lah

Brown (beige) = murang cah-pey

Black = itt-im

Blue = boo-how/ah-sool

Yellow = di-laow

White = poo-tee

Green = ber-day (from the Spanish verde)

I have written them phonetically, partly because I have learned them by ear and have no idea how to spell them, but also so you can practice them and be assured of a warm welcome when next in Manila and able to show off your fluent Tagalog. Then the girls taught me rosas. Pink of course. Although that is not the colour of my nails, but I am yet to learn the word for bronze or copper.

Posted in Food & Wine, Local Culture, Philippines | 2 Comments